In the hallway of the portable offices that serve as his coaching staff's modest headquarters, he is instantly recognizable to any Torontonian with a TV set. Bouncing around, bantering with the office manager, grinning from ear to ear, he comes exactly as advertised - the ebullient local icon, larger than life despite his diminutive stature. He's Pinball.

Then we retreat to an office, close the door and turn on the tape recorder. And at that moment, it's rather a different version of the Toronto Argonauts head coach that emerges.

He is still polite, engaging, gracious with his time. He still smiles frequently, if a little less broadly. But his demeanour suddenly becomes much calmer, his voice softer, his words more thoughtful and deliberate.

He's no longer Pinball. He's Michael Clemons - football coach, civic leader, businessman, devoted husband and father. And he's underestimated at your peril.

***

Clemons' entire adult life has been about exceeding expectations.

He was supposed to be too small to play professional football. So after a brief stint in the National Football League - remarkable in itself, considering his five-foot-five-inch frame - he went on to become one of the greatest players in the history of the Canadian Football League. By the time he'd finished, Clemons had won the CFL's most outstanding player award, set new career and single-season records for total yards, and won three Grey Cups.

Named the Argos' head coach before he'd even hung up his cleats, he was supposed to be a dismal failure - a good sport in way over his head, exploited by a desperate owner trying to distract from the team's woes. Instead, he instantaneously made the team competitive again, stepped aside to take a front-office position and then returned to ultimately lead the team to a Grey Cup win. Today, he is firmly ensconced in the CFL's upper echelon of coaches, recognized as a motivator with few equals.

Most remarkable, though, has been the 41-year-old's enormous sense of responsibility to his adopted city. Since moving here in 1990, Clemons has embraced community involvement beyond any reasonable expectation. Not only has he been front-and-centre to an infinite number of charity events and organizations, he's also done yeoman's service out of the spotlight - offering a hand whenever he can afford to, paying unpublicized visits to hospitals to visit sick children, sharing every minute of his spare time he can afford.

It's only recently, however, that he's gone from scattershot activism to a more focused local presence - primarily through Stop the Violence, the Argos' outreach efforts to combat the city's recent rash of gun crime. Much as he deflects credit for spearheading the initiative to Argos president Keith Pelley and Siemans Canada's Steve Jones, Clemons - complemented by many of the Argos players, who've followed his lead by branching out into troubled communities to speak to at-risk youth - is by far its most public face. And this week, that role took on epic proportions with his appointment as chairman of the Youth Challenge Fund, a provincial initiative that could see as much as $45-million invested in youth programs for afflicted neighbourhoods.

Now, there are persistent rumours a political career lurks on the horizon. For years, parties and assorted strategists have been approaching him to run; for the first time, he's begun to show openness to the idea. For now, he says, he doesn't want to "jump into [politics] in an uninformed way. First thing is I have a job; I have a commitment here, something that we're trying to do that I think is extremely important and I'm extremely impassioned about.'' But speculation persists, particularly around the possibility that he will eventually run for Toronto mayor.

Even with Clemons having taken on a role in public life beyond that of any recent Toronto sports figure, there are those who would again write him off. He's a nice guy, they'll say. A great frontman for any organization. But hardly someone with the depth to emerge as a serious leader.

Their mistake is to assume that the only Michael Clemons is the one they see in front of the cameras. That he is only Pinball. If his success running a football team doesn't convince them otherwise, an hour with him probably would.

***

Coming from anyone else, many of Clemons' answers on both Stop the Violence and his own career interests would seem carefully scripted, even a little smarmy.

At-risk youth, he says, need "love." Communities must learn that a real "star" isn't someone on TV or on the football field, but a positive contributor to his community. His main love in life, and the reason he might consider getting into public life, is "people." He watches politicians not with a critical eye, but with a "compassionate" one.

But Clemons' actions over the past 15 years allow him to speak credibly about love and selflessness. Nor can he be accused of serving up throwaway lines. With detailed responses carrying on for several minutes - sometimes deliberate, sometimes shifting into a sort of verse that reflects his Southern Christian upbringing in Florida - he'll never be accused of serving up sound bites.

Most encouraging for those looking to him to take on more of a leadership role, though, is the faint glimmer of a slightly harder edge - an ability, beyond the good deeds and flowery rhetoric, to make tough decisions when needed.

It's a skill that has already been on evidence not only in his coaching, but in his careful management of his public persona. With roughly 70 personal requests coming in each day, he is only able to accommodate a few of them. That in itself, he says, has taught him how to say no.

More significant is his nuanced take on crime. Troubled communities, he says, need some "well-intentioned attention" in the form of investment and the sort of mentorship programs the Argos have actively taken on. "But it's not only intent. I think it's important for us to have a greater level of accountability. We've gotta look at things that we're currently fiscally supporting that are working that we need to expand. There are other things that we're supporting that are not working, and we have to be honest and move in other directions."

Merely throwing good money after bad, Clemons adds, is "lazy economics, and lazy socialism for that matter." And he believes there is an equal role for law-and-order initiatives. "When we don't respect life, the punishment has to be consistent with that," he says.

As a football coach living in a relatively affluent neighbourhood, he's reluctant to speak for communities in terms of their specific needs. But from his own experience, he's clear on priorities in the broad sense.

"There are literally entire neighbourhoods that don't feel empowered; there are cultures selling themselves short," he says. "The impetus here is really to understand: If I can, you can. Every stereotype you can imagine - raised by a single parent, mom was 18, dad not there.... It wasn't sports -- I needed education. For me, the real impetus is education."

When asked, directly, whether he has the stomach for the rough-and-tumble world of politics, Clemons doesn't hesitate.

"I've never really wanted to be popular - I just want to do what's right," he says. "This whole fear of what people might think is something that paralyzes people.... There is no part of me that has a fear of the ramifications as they relate to popularity, acceptance, any of those things. If you think you can help your community, that you might be able to make a difference, I think you do that."

***

Clemons has a long way to go before taking a full-fledged plunge into public life. Perhaps because his father was actively involved in his community without taking a role in raising his son, he is acutely aware of the need to put family first. As he puts it, quoting a friend: "While y'all are being a missionary, be careful not to make your own home a mission field."

He must also finalize his Canadian citizenship, which he's working on.

Then there's the small matter of honing his skills - not least by learning to give a brief answer, endearing though his expansive speaking style may be. But everything he has done to date suggests that wouldn't be a problem.

A better question may be if that's something we should be hoping for. As unique an individual as he has proved himself, it would almost be a shame to watch him transform himself into a typical politician. But those who underestimate his ability to do so don't know the real Michael Clemons.